My Thoughts

Ladies: Is he worth it?

I start by saying this is not particularly a good time in Nigeria as we keep hearing or reading in the newspapers of some death or killings that are related to man-woman relationship. I am particularly disturbed and seriously worried at the rate at which people take their lives or kill another person all in the name of love. I am more saddened because of the sanctity of life!

In my last blog titled “What’s the value of your life?” I concentrated on the need for people to understand and respect sanctity of life. However, this piece will be centred on the issue of relationship between a man and woman with the sole aim of stressing the importance of life and living. Most importantly I will be addressing the female folks mainly.

I can still remember it was just a couple of weeks ago when news broke out that one Mr. Kolade Arowolo was alleged to have stabbed his wife to death. My immediate comment was “that’s impossible!”. I said so because I couldn’t understand why a man would stab his own wife to the extent that she died in the process. I still can’t fathom why anyway. Albeit there were different versions of the events that led to the death of the deceased, Mrs. Titilayo Arowolo one thing remains certain and clear, she is dead.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I got on twitter on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 20, 2011 and there in my face was another story of a young lady named Miss Motunrayo Ogbara who was reported to have committed suicide and the reason stated in the story as published by Punch Newspaper was that she got jilted by her boyfriend.

In the case of Mrs. Arowolo I asked the question of how long has the domestic violence been going on? Why did she wait till she had to lose her life in the process? Couldn’t she have reported to the Police? Unfortunately she’s late and so we will never have answers these questions. How sad! However, I believe the following questions are what the police should be asking. Apart from the couples who else knew about the domestic violence? If there were, how long and what did they do about it? Apparently we don’t even have well equipped Police and security system to conduct such investigation.

However, in the case of Miss Ogbara I understand from the story published in the papers that she had at one time in the past, precisely in December 2010, attempted to commit suicide but was stopped by family members. The following would be my questions: was she suffering from? Perhaps depression? Did she at any time before her suicide talk to anyone about what she was facing? Did she or her family seek medical and psychological help? A lot of questions beg for answers but she is already gone.

After taking closer look at the story surrounding Miss Ogbara’s suicide one gets the impression that she decided to take her life out of her personal reasons other than being jilted by her boyfriend. My point is I understand she had a medical condition which invalidated her from an opportunity at bearing a child resulting in the boyfriend leaving her. So what if you can’t have a child?! However, I am struggling to understand why a woman will commit (even want to) suicide because a man has just left her. I therefore conclude that Miss Ogbara’s suicide is more than the jilt but we will never find out the real issues involved.

That said I strongly believe that in the interest of those of us still alive we need to critically examine the issues at hand by educating ourselves on what needs to be done should we be faced with such peculiar situations. We cannot continue to live in this manner lest we hear someone has taken his/her life because of another man or woman whatever the reason.

Millions of people walk the streets all over the country wallowing in frustration and depression even though it is not conspicuously seen on their faces but with a closer look at some people one can easily tell if such person has been bottling up a lot and needs to ‘offload’ some of the things worrying their minds. For these reasons I suggest government establish institutions where people can easily go to seek guidance and counselling by talking to the psychologist and in some cases perhaps a psychotherapist would be better.

A lot would say “but I am not mad why do I need to see a therapist?” You don’t have to be mad before you seek help! After all the wise saying is that prevention is better than cure. I strongly believe that the secretive nature of our people as well as the constant thought of what the society would say or think has led many to suffer or die in silence when they can actually get help with ease. Society can only talk about you until a more interesting topic comes up and they move on. In fact now that they are both dead isn’t the society talk about them? People should inculcate the culture of sharing their problems with those who they think can proffer immediate and potential solutions.

In saner climes there are institutions dedicated to listening to people who are depressed or frustrated for whatever reason(s). I put it to you that the current situation in Nigeria is enough for some people to be frustrated so when other problems are added to the existing situations they become depressed and a lot lose their sanity in the process.

Excuse me sir! You don’t have to take out your frustration or act of depression on that woman by turning her into your punching bags. She’s not the cause of your problem. Even if she is, if you feel like punching or when angry and need to hit something I reckon you can use the walls in your house. If you feel the pains in your hands maybe you will understand the effect landing your fist on your spouse will have on her. Why must you even beat your wife? I thought you loved her that’s why you married her in the first place. Did you tell her family that your house is a boxing ring? Men beware!

Let me categorically make this clear that under no circumstance most especially marriage should a woman allow a man (be her husband, fiancé or boyfriend) to violate her right as a person. Don’t even wait for violence at all. When he raises his voice to verbally abuse you then you should be getting ready to run. The moment you discover a man is getting violent, marriage or no marriage, women please take to your heels and run as far as you can. You are more useful alive divorced, separated or single than dead married or engaged. If you kill yourself because of another man I can assure you that he will only mourn for a while and move on with his life even with a prettier woman.

Please don’t get me wrong I am not saying you shouldn’t respect your man but you should know when it is turning into slavery which isn’t what you signed up for. As for the unmarried ones what tells you that he is the right one? If he beats or violates you before marriage what assurance do you have that he would change after marriage? If he doesn’t marry you another man would and in so many of the times you end up with a better person!

Please don’t kill yourself because of him and neither should allow him to kill you. Trust me it’s not worth losing your life. A word they say is enough for the wise! Shine your eyes and act promptly!

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11 thoughts on “Ladies: Is he worth it?”

Nicely articulated and quit timely, As a society I think we need to take our mental health very seriously and parents should do more in the up bringing of their girl child, for me I think it all starts from our homes when we are kids, what we see our parents do and also what we are taught is the expectations of society of us

Well written and very profound,I agree with you that the notion that only mad people need say a shrink should erased from our society.

Another thing that we need to do away with is the secrecy and “hush hush mentality” with which our society treats battery and depression.This does not afford a lot of people the luxury of talking about their issues for fear that they would either be mocked or castigated.

A lot of people have said that suicide is a borrowed culture but I hope that can have a change of heart-Motunrayo is a reflection of the average female professional in Nigeria and I guess everyone can relate with that.

But do you know what? our parent are also apportion with blame here. As a parent we should be able to Inculcate the closeness for the kids to be able to relate their problems with you. In the case of Titi if she had confided in someone very close to her tragedy wouldn’t have gone so bad. Pls any parent reading the piece Bisi wrote should pls create good communication balance with the kids cos its what you teach your child that what he / she gives back to the society at large. As for the lady that commited sucide, it takes the grace of God, men are not worth dieing for it’s a pity she took her own life cos the guy he died for still leaves his life to the fullest. Bisi weldone keep the write up rolling in God bless you.

I get worried atimes why some men lay their hands on their so call wives. Its very bad, no matter what d lady as done wrong u shouldn’t ave raise ur hand to beat her not to talk of punching her its uncalled for. I will use this opportunity to implore our ladies too not to provoke their husbands because some ladies find it difficult to respect their husbands proving that afterall they are both graduates. No matter what,your husband is ur husband even though u are older and educated than him or even earning more salary than him u should learn to give him his due respect at all times. Finally husbands no matter what your wife did to provoke u, just over look it as if nothing had happened. God almighty will be with us all and also increase the love both the husband and wife shared together.

Very timely piece.
The scourge of domestic violence must be addressed. Institutions for counseling are also a requirement in contemporary societies.
The social perceptions must be weighed and properly founded. Well done.

No man is worth dying 4, in fact non is worth your tears and even the one dat is worth it would never make u cry. Relationship is not a do or die affair cos there are a million and one guyz out there who would appreciate and take you for who you are. A broken relationship is better than a broken home. We really don’t have to pretend that all is well when everything is absolutely going wrong. Marriage is a life time commitment so you need not marry out of pity or in the notion that he is gonna change afta marriage. better days ahead

May God help us! The idea of not sharing or keeping what ever it is you are going through @ any point with someone will after sometime eat you up! The mistake we make is thinking we are Ȋ̝̊̅n competition with someone somewhere. One spirit we must all adopt is the spirit of thanksgiving! When we are not grateful to God for the “little”, depression sets Ȋ̝̊̅n as all hope is lost! Nice write up @ a right time!

Nice piece BC. Though am not a Psychologist I can confidently say that women that remain in abusive relationship ranging from verbal, emotional or to the most commonly known form of abuse -(physical) have low self esteem. Their partner must have battered them verbally and emotional before finally retorting to physical abuse. Especially in a society like ours where marriage “is everything” and a “must have” and the male folk pride their masculinity with such terms as “its a man’s world” some ladies with low self esteem would not want to be branded or perceived as failures hence the only reason they stay put in an abusive relationship or commit suicide because of a guy. I think this is the time for the ministry of women affairs to rise up to educate and enlighten the women folk on the dangers associated to remain in such relationship and be taken to the grass-roots. Also, it would be good if a pep talk is specially designed for the girl child this should be incorporated into the school curriculum which would help in building a strong character and also something similar to the male child. If the right morals are instilled in both sexes right from childhood they would grow up never to depart from it.